It’s now official, the Chinese company Das Solar is arriving in the Pays de Montbéliard. For the first time, the company is going beyond its borders to set up the largest solar panel factory in Europe.
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This is the big project of the year 2025 in the Pays de Montbéliard. The Chinese company Das Solar, manufacturer and seller of photovoltaic panels in nearly 70 countries around the world, has set its sights on a first installation in Europe in the town of Mandeure in Doubs. This Monday, November 18, the company bought the former Faurecia factory, which is now near Allenjoie.
The premises were sold by the Agglomération du Pays de Montbéliard, with premises of 51,671 m² of total building surface area for a sum of 1.2 million euros excluding taxes. In the near future, the site will become a gigafactory.
For Frédéric Barbier, former deputy of the 4e constituency of Doubs and manager of the consulting company FBR-Partners which helped in negotiations with the Chinese company, “it’s a feeling of satisfaction. Seeing a new factory on the territory of the Pays de Montbéliard, which is suffering from deindustrialization on the part of the automobile industry, this is a first step. From now on, we need technology transfers, new know-how in France, which we do not have or no longer have”.
Established only in China, the Das Solar company is launching into the big European bath and more precisely in Mandeure. The company even claims to be the third largest exporter of solar panels in the world. According to Echo du Solaire, a weekly news letter, “China currently produces around eight out of ten solar panels” in the world.
Mandeure is a commune located in the Doubs department in Franche-Comté.
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© France 3 Franche-Comté
With an infrastructure of nearly 100,000 m² and 109 million euros of investments, the photovoltaic panel giant has made a very good impression on the mayor of the town of Mandeure, Jean-Pierre Hocquet. “I immediately felt the seriousness of the buyers. When you see someone arriving with several million euros, you feel that they are not jokes. But for the moment the feeling is positive”.
From 2025, numerous job creations are planned within the future Das Solar factory. “In terms of employment, it is around 500 employees, it will be of the same caliber as factories in China”explains Frédéric Barbier. For the town of almost 5,000 inhabitants it is “a bonus for the city and the conurbation, this will boost jobs, the economy but also real estate in the sector”.
A target set for June 2025, with a factory which should be operational. Other companies had been approached previously, as the manager of the consulting company explains, “we We worked to have battery gigafactories, but these had been placed in the north of France. I knew that Das Solar had tried to establish itself on French soil. We met them until we managed to make them understand the merits of coming to settle in Europe.”.
